helm vs ido

helm vs ido

[Thorsten Jolitz]

Hi List, 

I used ido-everywhere and smex for quite a while now as a happy
user. Recently I discovered helm as an impressive replacement for
autocomplete. However, helm is so powerful it might replace ido, smex,
regexp-builder and other useful libraries. 

There are some aspects I really like about helm, but others not so much,
e.g.:

- how to get rid of helm-completion in the mini-buffer? In Ido, there is
  C-f, but helm seems to follow more a bondage&submission approach with
  no way out (or I'm just a new user and did not discover the
  trick). C-x C-w (write-file) is a good example were completion gets in
  your way. 

- is ido-completion smarter than helm-completion? Somehow I have the
  (obviously subjective) feeling that I reach the searched
  buffer/file/command ... with less effort using Ido. One example might
  be M-x w3m - with Ido its typing M-x w3 RET, with helm the basic w3m
  command is not necessary the first choice and some navigation in the
  completion buffer or some more typing is necessary. 

Right now I'm back to ido-everywhere, but on the other hand I miss
helm-grep, helm-regexp and other amazing stuff this package offers. Do I
simply have to study helm more deeply to make it replace all its
predecessors without regrets, or are there actually use cases where ido
et.al. are still better than helm?

-- 
cheers,
Thorsten

Re: helm vs ido

[Thierry Volpiatto]

Thorsten Jolitz <tjolitz@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi List, 
>
> I used ido-everywhere and smex for quite a while now as a happy
> user. Recently I discovered helm as an impressive replacement for
> autocomplete. However, helm is so powerful it might replace ido, smex,
> regexp-builder and other useful libraries. 
>
> There are some aspects I really like about helm, but others not so much,
> e.g.:
>
> - how to get rid of helm-completion in the mini-buffer? In Ido, there is
>   C-f, but helm seems to follow more a bondage&submission approach with
>   no way out (or I'm just a new user and did not discover the
>   trick). C-x C-w (write-file) is a good example were completion gets in
>   your way. 

If you want to get rid of helm completion in e.g `write-file' when
`helm-mode' is enabled, and you want `write-file' use ido, customize
`helm-completing-read-handlers-alist':
Add write-file => ido.
Now when using C-x C-w you will have ido completion instead of helm
completion.

> - is ido-completion smarter than helm-completion? Somehow I have the
>   (obviously subjective) feeling that I reach the searched
>   buffer/file/command ... with less effort using Ido. One example might
>   be M-x w3m - with Ido its typing M-x w3 RET, with helm the basic w3m
>   command is not necessary the first choice and some navigation in the
>   completion buffer or some more typing is necessary. 

You are using the M-x version enabled with `helm-mode' which is the same
than vanilla emacs M-x but with helm interface.
Use `helm-M-x' instead.

> Right now I'm back to ido-everywhere, but on the other hand I miss
> helm-grep, helm-regexp and other amazing stuff this package offers. Do I
> simply have to study helm more deeply

Yes, probably.

> to make it replace all its predecessors without regrets, or are there
> actually use cases where ido et.al. are still better than helm?

-- 
Thierry
Get my Gnupg key:
gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 59F29997 

Re: helm vs ido

[Thorsten Jolitz]

Thierry Volpiatto <thierry.volpiatto@gmail.com> writes:

>> - how to get rid of helm-completion in the mini-buffer? In Ido, there is
>>   C-f, but helm seems to follow more a bondage&submission approach with
>>   no way out (or I'm just a new user and did not discover the
>>   trick). C-x C-w (write-file) is a good example were completion gets in
>>   your way. 
>
> If you want to get rid of helm completion in e.g `write-file' when
> `helm-mode' is enabled, and you want `write-file' use ido, customize
> `helm-completing-read-handlers-alist':
> Add write-file => ido.
> Now when using C-x C-w you will have ido completion instead of helm
> completion.

nice, thanks

>> - is ido-completion smarter than helm-completion? Somehow I have the
>>   (obviously subjective) feeling that I reach the searched
>>   buffer/file/command ... with less effort using Ido. One example might
>>   be M-x w3m - with Ido its typing M-x w3 RET, with helm the basic w3m
>>   command is not necessary the first choice and some navigation in the
>>   completion buffer or some more typing is necessary. 
>
> You are using the M-x version enabled with `helm-mode' which is the same
> than vanilla emacs M-x but with helm interface.
> Use `helm-M-x' instead.

I did bind M-x to helm-M-x. 

>> Right now I'm back to ido-everywhere, but on the other hand I miss
>> helm-grep, helm-regexp and other amazing stuff this package offers. Do I
>> simply have to study helm more deeply
>
> Yes, probably.

I thought so....

-- 
cheers,
Thorsten